Final Fantasy XIII

I'm a little ways into Chapter 10, and have probably close to 30 hours of play time. I spent a lot of time checking out the weapon upgrading and have also done a little bit of grinding but not much. I love the new Flan-class enemies. Lots of cool designs and abilities and pretty funky names, much better than just the different colors and names based on colors from the previous games.

I got my ass handed to me by that guy the first time CamaroBoy, but I busted him up real good on the second try. Took 12 minutes, but still over the target time. Who was in your party? I had...
Lightning, Sazh and Vanille. Having a Synergist and Saboteur was really helpful. And using Light as the medic so I could heal when *I* wanted to saved me plenty of times.
 
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I forgot this site has the spoiler wrap. Thats much easier.
I also think I only died 1 time. I had Lightning, Fang, and Hope. I just kept switching between the paradigms hoping for the best. I also kept using my Libra until all the ??? were gone. Whenever he starting charging up his attack I switched Hope to medic so we were all healed when he attacked. That attack would almost kill us each time. I think Lightning and Fang have around 1,200 hp so that helped a lot.
 
725
I wasn't convinced after all the magazine reviews I've read, but you guys are changing my mind, I take it, the game still looks impressive on the 360?
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Yes this is easily the best looking game on the 360 especially the CGI cinemas. Nothing else is close.
 
Can I just ask anyone that's a good way in, does this game open up at all and roughly how many hours in does it? I'm asking because for the 12 hours I've been playing so far it's been completely linear, and while it's not been a bad game it's getting pretty repetetive now. It's not the same as other Final Fantasy games so far, there's been no exploration, no proper interaction with NPCs, no sub-quests, the character developent has been slow and it's been a completely linear game so far which is a bit dissapointing.
 
Dave A
Can I just ask anyone that's a good way in, does this game open up at all and roughly how many hours in does it? I'm asking because for the 12 hours I've been playing so far it's been completely linear, and while it's not been a bad game it's getting pretty repetetive now. It's not the same as other Final Fantasy games so far, there's been no exploration, no proper interaction with NPCs, no sub-quests, the character developent has been slow and it's been a completely linear game so far which is a bit dissapointing.
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I've been playing for almost 30 hours (I might be playing slow?), and the game has not opened up just yet, but it feels like it is getting ready to. I am in chapter 9, and I'm pretty sure that I'm at the last boss of the chapter, if that helps give a better idea of how far I am.
 
Dave A
Can I just ask anyone that's a good way in, does this game open up at all and roughly how many hours in does it? I'm asking because for the 12 hours I've been playing so far it's been completely linear, and while it's not been a bad game it's getting pretty repetetive now. It's not the same as other Final Fantasy games so far, there's been no exploration, no proper interaction with NPCs, no sub-quests, the character developent has been slow and it's been a completely linear game so far which is a bit dissapointing.
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The game opens up at Chapter 11. At which point the game play becomes very open indeed. This might seem late in the game, but the later chapters are much longer, since your not forced to play in a linear fashion. The customization becomes more free as well. I think the game significantly improves after chapter 10. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that my game time is over 50 hours. :ill:
 
The game "opens up" at Chapter 11, although it's not as open as past FFs. It's fairly limited. You pretty much only get the ability to...
undertake some optional monster hunts similar to what was in FF12 if you played it. You can also just explore the world and do some level grinding if you want. There's stuff there that will eat you alive at that particular point of the game.

It took me 38 hours to get to that point and I've played slow and taken my time, exploring as much as I could during the first 10 chapters. I've spent another 2 hours running around grinding a bit and checking out all the interesting new monsters. I love the variety. Sure some are the same design with different skins, but their abilities are pretty cool. I've found these sweet little monsters that are fun to beat up on. They're just a version of the Gremlins (penguin looking things with bat wings from earlier chapters) but they give you a good bit of CP and are super easy. I'll spoiler tag the info in case anyone wants to know about them.
They're usually in groups of 3 or 4 and sometimes with another beast. Target time for a group of 4 was like 14 minutes or something insane. I dispatched them in about 2, and that was without the help of a preemptive attack.
 
Thanks guys, I guess I'll keep rinding until it opens up, I think I'm on chapter 6 or 7 now. I'm still on Pulse and I've just had a ride on one of thoes Drednought things.
 
Now I have 50 hours into this game. About 4 hours of that has been grinding for extra exp. Once you get to chapter 11 it is no joke at all. If your characters are not leveled up enough, you will die. And you will die a lot. I recommend grinding for exp as much as you can any chance you get. The more HP you have the better chance you will have to survive. I hit another road block last night that almost made me quit playing. I might be able to change a couple of my paragrims around too and that might help. All my characters have over 4,000 hp. I will probably level up some more then come back to it. Otherwise I might be done with this game for a while. I dont want to look it up but I will eventually if I have to.

This is where I am stuck on chapter 11.

I am at the 2nd fight with Barthandalus and dang its just relentless and brutal. I have been using Lightning, Fang, and Hope for a very long time now. I think I might have to swap out Hope for Vanille or something. I just dont know at this point. My strategies that work on all the other enemies simply dont work on him. It works for about half his energy then out of nowhere boom dead. I can also try to swap in some different characters.
 
:ill:

This is what I am worried about - getting well into the game and then getting stuck! I was struggling against the Chapter 8 boss and had to employ skullduggery (see spoiler 2) to beat him her (whatever the blazes it is) - which doesn't bode well for when the game gets really hard :nervous:

One reason I found the battle hard was this:

1 - Apparently, you need to have Sazh cast "Haste" on your party, but my Sazh is nowhere near learning that ability yet (it's a 4th level Synergist ability, and I'm still on 2nd level) - so I must have been doing the Crystarium wrong, or simply haven't collected enough CP with Sazh...??

2 - I almost won the battle without any help, by equipping the party with a maxed out Ember ring (to reduce fire damage), but I switched the Battle Speed to "Slow" and won the battle easily first time...
 
CAMAROBOY69
Now I have 50 hours into this game. About 4 hours of that has been grinding for extra exp. Once you get to chapter 11 it is no joke at all. If your characters are not leveled up enough, you will die. And you will die a lot. I recommend grinding for exp as much as you can any chance you get. The more HP you have the better chance you will have to survive. I hit another road block last night that almost made me quit playing. I might be able to change a couple of my paragrims around too and that might help. All my characters have over 4,000 hp. I will probably level up some more then come back to it. Otherwise I might be done with this game for a while. I dont want to look it up but I will eventually if I have to.

This is where I am stuck on chapter 11.

I am at the 2nd fight with Barthandalus and dang its just relentless and brutal. I have been using Lightning, Fang, and Hope for a very long time now. I think I might have to swap out Hope for Vanille or something. I just dont know at this point. My strategies that work on all the other enemies simply dont work on him. It works for about half his energy then out of nowhere boom dead. I can also try to swap in some different characters.
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Yeah I was having trouble aswell. Just need decent amount of hp really.
 
I really need to level up my weapons too. I only have 1 weapon at level 8. All the other character weapons are only 3 or 4. I am sure thats not helping. But I will just do some more hp grinding and try again some other day.
 
Not sure if this is a glitch of somekind but with Lightning/Hope/Fang Commando/Ravenger/Commando I have noticed that Fang usually attacks a different target to the one I've targeted. It's a little annoying when an enemy is weaker against physical attacks. Anyone noticed this?
 
G.T
Not sure if this is a glitch of somekind but with Lightning/Hope/Fang Commando/Ravenger/Commando I have noticed that Fang usually attacks a different target to the one I've targeted. It's a little annoying when an enemy is weaker against physical attacks. Anyone noticed this?
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I have Lightning, Fang, Hope and the same thing always happens. I just thought it was part of the game but wasnt sure how to balance it out yet. If you switch to a different enemy, she will also switch so she is not attacking the same one as you. Until it is down to 1 enemy then she will attack it. Strange indeed.
 
CAMAROBOY69
I have Lightning, Fang, Hope and the same thing always happens. I just thought it was part of the game but wasnt sure how to balance it out yet. If you switch to a different enemy, she will also switch so she is not attacking the same one as you. Until it is down to 1 enemy then she will attack it. Strange indeed.
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G.T
Not sure if this is a glitch of somekind but with Lightning/Hope/Fang Commando/Ravenger/Commando I have noticed that Fang usually attacks a different target to the one I've targeted. It's a little annoying when an enemy is weaker against physical attacks. Anyone noticed this?
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A second commando will always attack a target other than your current target, until there is only one target left. If you read the description of any paradigm that contains two commandos, it will say as much.

Edit: I've found that in these cases it is better to keep two Ravagers and one Commando until there is only one enemy left, and only change to a paradigm with two Commandos after I have the enemy staggered.
 
ohhh ok that makes sense. Also is there any way to return back to the beginning of chapter 11? The area that was more open. I am almost at the end but I was not powerful enough to beat all the enemies in the beginning of chapter 11. I want to try them again.
 
CAMAROBOY69
ohhh ok that makes sense. Also is there any way to return back to the beginning of chapter 11? The area that was more open. I am almost at the end but I was not powerful enough to beat all the enemies in the beginning of chapter 11. I want to try them again.
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If you are in chapter 12 ( EDEN ), you cant go back to chapter 11 to do the hunt missions until you reach chapter 13, 2 telaport panels will turn up, 1 to got back to eden & the other to chapter 11.

Anyone else need any help.
 
I'm at a final boss fight which is against Orphan now (chapter 13).Just know that he uses an attack that almost instantly KO your party, plus it uses debuff.
So yeah, any uselful tips?
 
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Might want to throw is some spoiler tags, not everyone will want to know who the final battle is against. :rolleyes:
 
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I decided to try the chapter 11 boss again.

I am using Lightning, Fang, Hope. Got him down 1/4 health and I was doing very well. Then out of nowhere he just does some random shot that I have never seen and killed me instantly. I am guessing this random shot must do at least 4,500 damage. Because we had full shields, full health, full everything and still out of nowhere instantly killed me. I did change around one of my paradigms that allowed 2 medics and put Fang on Sentinel. That was an awesome defense paradigm. I mean really awesome and helped a lot. I guess I will just have to keep leveling up and come back to him later. There is just no way I can beat him because I gave it the best I could last night and still died by some random overpowered shot. I am also not sure when the best time is to summon Oden.
 
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i'm working my way through chapter 9 currently (will have to check next time the amount of hours put into it) but God of War 3 i got yesterday may cut down my ff13 play time a bit. So far the game is extremely linear, although i still try to search all the available paths on the map for items/etc. I'm enjoying the game and the story line so far. Can't wait for the game/world to open up to have options and places to explore. Hopefully they will have side quests etc. that you can go on and mini games. :)👍
 
I have a question about the Crystarium if anyone can answer...

As you level up any particular character, you get a choice of roles to level up. But eventually, they are fully maxed, and you either have to level up other roles or leave the CP unused.

I've been using up the CP and hence all my characters are equally levelled on all roles... I was expecting there to be a point where you could 'specialise' in a role for each character, but almost at the end of Chapter 9, I still find myself having to level up through the other roles before I can make any progress.

So, is it better to keep using all the available CP, or does there come a point where you can spend it all on just one role? And if you don't level up the other roles, are you weaker at key points in the game??
 
CAMAROBOY69
I decided to try the chapter 11 boss again.

I am using Lightning, Fang, Hope. Got him down 1/4 health and I was doing very well. Then out of nowhere he just does some random shot that I have never seen and killed me instantly. I am guessing this random shot must do at least 4,500 damage. Because we had full shields, full health, full everything and still out of nowhere instantly killed me. I did change around one of my paradigms that allowed 2 medics and put Fang on Sentinel. That was an awesome defense paradigm. I mean really awesome and helped a lot. I guess I will just have to keep leveling up and come back to him later. There is just no way I can beat him because I gave it the best I could last night and still died by some random overpowered shot. I am also not sure when the best time is to summon Oden.
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You probably wouldn't like to hear that I beat this boss first time using fairly unremarkable tactics. I had all my characters maxed out in terms of each of their 3 main roles which is probably why I found it fairly straight forward. If you do think training up will make all the difference, then don't train in oerba, the battles take a long time for their relatively small CP gain, instead, go all the way back to the caves earlier in chapter 11 and you can farm a lot of CP very quickly.

For the actual fight, When things get to the later and more dangerous stages, get a synergist to cast protect over the whole party (hope has that ability), then quickly switch to two medics and one commando. With protect and two medics you should just about to be able to survive the barrage.

Apparently he can cast doom right at the end of the battle, although he didn't to me, so you might just have to call an odin if you can't afford to use an attacking paradigm, Its best to save your technical points right until the end for this reason.

Touring Mars
I have a question about the Crystarium if anyone can answer...

As you level up any particular character, you get a choice of roles to level up. But eventually, they are fully maxed, and you either have to level up other roles or leave the CP unused.

I've been using up the CP and hence all my characters are equally levelled on all roles... I was expecting there to be a point where you could 'specialise' in a role for each character, but almost at the end of Chapter 9, I still find myself having to level up through the other roles before I can make any progress.

So, is it better to keep using all the available CP, or does there come a point where you can spend it all on just one role? And if you don't level up the other roles, are you weaker at key points in the game??
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Unfortunately, it doesn't really specialise all that much, you will always have two or three characters who can perform the same role. That said, each characters strengths and weakness become more pronounced as the game goes on. At the start of chapter 11, a large chunk of the crystalerium becomes available, and CP upgrades become significantly more expensive, at this point you may want to start thinking about specializing each character, since it will take a while before you will be able to upgrade all the roles completely for one character.

While this post probably makes little sense, the general message is that at chapter 11, you can start to specialize considerably more than in previous chapters. However as you progress in the chapter (its quite a big one) you might finally reach a point where you may have to start levelling up other roles. It's worth pointing out that chapter 11 will probably be first chapter in which you don't manage to spend all your CP points in all the roles of choice.
 
I found one of my problems last night while grinding for exp. I didnt realize how low Hopes HP was. So I upgraded some of his accessories and added over 400 more hp!!! So now he is actually higher than lightning and higher than Fang! :) So that will help a lot in the battle. I am also confused with exactly how the x bonus works. Sometimes I get x1, x1.5, x2, x3 but cant figure out what triggers this x bonus.

I have a question about one of the accessories.

The accessory cost 100,000 and is supposed to provide more collectables with each battle. I bought this about a day ago and have not noticed very many results. This leads to my next question. If I keep it equiped and beat the main boss enemies, will I get better loot drops??? If the answer is no then I will simply replace this right before the battle with something that provides more health.

I also noticed the boss shoots a lot of fire. I wonder if it would be better to equip an accessort that protects against fire?
 
CAMAROBOY69
I found one of my problems last night while grinding for exp. I didnt realize how low Hopes HP was. So I upgraded some of his accessories and added over 400 more hp!!! So now he is actually higher than lightning and higher than Fang! :) So that will help a lot in the battle. I am also confused with exactly how the x bonus works. Sometimes I get x1, x1.5, x2, x3 but cant figure out what triggers this x bonus.

I have a question about one of the accessories.

The accessory cost 100,000 and is supposed to provide more collectables with each battle. I bought this about a day ago and have not noticed very many results. This leads to my next question. If I keep it equiped and beat the main boss enemies, will I get better loot drops??? If the answer is no then I will simply replace this right before the battle with something that provides more health.

I also noticed the boss shoots a lot of fire. I wonder if it would be better to equip an accessort that protects against fire?
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The EXP upgrade for weapons is tricky, certain items yield a low exp bonus but allow for a multiplication of EXP. Since x3 EXP is the highest multiplication possible, its a good idea to use components which increase the multiplication factor, before wasting any high value components. Its also worth holding onto components which drive up the multiplication factor.

There is no way of knowing in advance how the multiplication factor will be affected by a component, some will increase this and some will decrease this. The one I rely on is the wicked fang as it quickly brings up the multiplier, it can be bought from the creature comforts shop for 80 Gil a piece, If you need to level up a weapon, its a good idea to start with these.

The Collectors catalogue isn't likely to help you get any significantly better loot from just one battle, its something that you equip and over time you gradually rack up some of the more expensive components.

It's not something I would likely purchase for 100,000 but since I picked one up for free, I have it in a party members line up all of the time. If you are struggling to beat the boss, you probably would be better of equipping something which will help you, something like a general's belt, which increases physical defence by 15%, it might be an idea giving that to your lowest health character.

If defence is your main problem, Then perhaps consider getting 3 general's belt's for a character, while this means sacrificing your other accessories, the combined increase protection is almost 50% of all physical attacks at all times, combine this with the protect spell in battle (an additional 50% protection of the remaining 50%), and it will reduce the Boss's attack damage to a mere 25% something your medics should easily be able to handle.

If the cost of these accessories are an issue, there is a mini little side quest in oerba which can be done. There is a tiny little robot in one of the houses, which after examining gives you a little quest to repair. You have 5 parts to be find in oerba. After you find these parts, you take them back to the robots and get huge rewards. You are given 3 different types of components which offer negligible EXP bonus, but between them, can be sold for over 400,000Gil Definitely worth the time it takes to find them.
 
She is something of a ravager, and occassionally goes commando too! (and don't try and tell me that you too haven't tried to confirm this visually :sly: )
 

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